Pass the turing test by using a second language

I was intrigued by this report of a russian chatbot fooling men into thinking it was a woman who was hot for them. The chatbot seduces men, and gets them to give personal information that can be used in identity theft. The story is scant on details, but I was wondering why this was taking place in Russia and not in richer places. As reported, this was considered a partial passing of the Turing Test.

As it turns out, programs have passed Turing’s test with unskilled chat partners for some time. As I’ve written, the test should really involve fooling a skilled AI researcher. However, as I read about this chatbot, I thought of a strategy that it might be using. (The report doesn’t say.)

A chatbot could either try to fool people in a language which is a second language to the target, and/or claim that it is using a second language for itself. With English as the lingua franca of the internet and world commerce, it’s common to see two people talk in English, even though it is not the mother tongue of either of them. It is, however, their common language.

However, when in that situation, two things will occur. First, a non-native speaker may not notice mistakes of language made by their correspondent, simply because they are not that familiar with it. Nonsensical statements may just be written off. Secondly, if the correspondent is also not expected to be fluent in the language, even a native speaker would be forgiving of errors. Especially if it’s a woman they want to seduce.

As such, you would generate a situation where a far less sophisticated program could give the appearance of humanity. It’s easier to see how a chatbot, claiming to not speak English (or some other “common” language) very well — and Russian not at all — might be able to fool a Russian whose on English is meagre. Though you have to be pretty stupid to give away important information within 30 minutes to a chat partner you know nothing about. However, such a chatbot would work far less well against native speakers of English, as forgiving as they might be of the cyberlass’ foibles.